This invention relates to the art of wood chip sampling. In the papermaking art, it is often desired to determine the quality, size, composition, etc. of wood chips. Typically, wood chips are sorted by size or by weight, with those sizes or weights selected for particular parts of the papermaking process being sampled from time to time. A sample collecting receptacle is intermittently or periodically placed in the stream or flow of the wood chips, filled, withdrawn from the stream and then the wood chip sample is transferred to an analyzing station/apparatus for determination of its qualities or properties.
A typical wood chip sampling machine is described in U.S. Pat. No. 2,937,529 issued to Laprise. In the Laprise apparatus, a wood chip collecting tray is carried by a frame member 17, 20 which reciprocates along an axis in a horizontal plane. The reciprocation is into a stream of falling wood chips which are to be analyzed, and out of the stream. When pulled back out of the stream, the tray of Laprise automatically pivots to a substantially vertical position to thereby discharge or dump the collected wood chips into a chip analysis collection chamber. In order to assume a horizontal position for the next chip collecting cycle, an abutment 10 is required to tilt the vertically disposed sample collecting tray to once more assume a horizontal position. Further, with each cycle the tray turns 180 degrees, so that after two cycles the tray has turned 360 degrees and keeps on turning, in a counterclockwise motion, throughout the sample collecting operation. Laprise thus finds it necessary to provide a sample collection tray which has two operational or chip receiving surfaces, on account of the required rotation of the tray caused by continuing striking of abutment 10.